Image size: Delete pagefil.sys before imaging?

I am about to image my C:\ drive using Macrium Reflect Free. OS is Windows Vista. I'd like to have an image that is as small as possible, if that is necessary. I have already deleted my hiberfil.sys file by turning off hibernation.

Q.1 Should I attempt to make my image as small as possible by deleting the page file AND all but the most recent restore point? .... or does it matter.

Q.2 My pagefil.sys is 4GB. Should I delete it, reduce its size, or leave it alone before imaging?

Q.3 If you advise me to delete pagefil.sys, will my image have a place holder for the file, or will I have to recreate the page file if I have to restore my system from the image.

I don't use Macrium Reflect Free, but the imaging software I use has the option of leaving the pagefile and hiberfil.sys out of the image. I would think those options might also be available in Macrium Reflect Free.

Perhaps a Macrium user can chime in here and give you a more definitive answer.

Create a new drive image before making system changes, in case you need to start over!

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Do a combination of these measures. Create a separate partition on your C drive (call it drive P for pagefile) and put ONLY your pagefile on it. You may need to experiment a bit, to see how big the partition needs to be to accommodate your intended pagefile size. Optionally, also have a small pagefile (say 10meg) on your C drive if you want to have crash dumps saved - this will not be included in the backup anyway if you configure Macrium as suggested. There would be no need to back up drive P.

Another advantage of doing this is that if you use a drive activity indicator such as DriveGLEAM, you can see at a glance if there is activity on drive P, i.e. paging is happening.

Do a combination of these measures. Create a separate partition on your C drive (call it drive P for pagefile) and put ONLY your pagefile on it. You may need to experiment a bit, to see how big the partition needs to be to accommodate your intended pagefile size. Optionally, also have a small pagefile (say 10meg) on your C drive if you want to have crash dumps saved - this will not be included in the backup anyway if you configure Macrium as suggested. There would be no need to back up drive P.

Another advantage of doing this is that if you use a drive activity indicator such as DriveGLEAM, you can see at a glance if there is activity on drive P, i.e. paging is happening.

There is no good reason to take this approach. If Macrium is configured to skip the pagefile creating another partition is a waste of time. Having the pagefile on a different partition is only valuable if the partition is on a different physical disk which is at least as fast as the boot drive. Even then, unless there is a specific performance reason to do this it is a waste of time. Also, there are many articles available on how to properly size the pagefile if that is required - taking a guess and experimenting is the worst way.